Work Placement Diary: Ben Asher – Post 4
Student experience 16th December 2019
Today, we’re catching up with Ben who is on the MChem (Hons) Chemistry with Industrial Experience course, based at Scapa plc.
I am now into the fourth month of my placement at Scapa. Things are going well and my main project for the year is starting to take shape. Following on from a few months work in the lab tweaking mixtures and lots of testing I ran my first development trial which was probably my most stressful day to date!
Rather than making samples up in the lab, it involved giving the information to the shop floor workers so they could make up a large batch of the mix followed by running it through one of the machines used daily to make products for our customers. Thankfully, it went mostly to plan and the testing proved that the trial was a success. I am now planning to run the next trial before Christmas after tweaking the mixture I am using to better fit the required specification.
Alongside my main project, I am also working on several smaller projects as well dealing with smaller day-to-day problems that arise. I have also started drafting my placement report which felt daunting at first. However, once I had set out a plan and split it into smaller sections it seemed a lot less intimidating. When you break it down, it becomes just one big lab report with each section scaled up from one lab session to months of lab sessions. I would definitely recommend ensuring your manager knows about the demand report writing brings because they might let you write it in work if it is a quiet day.
Similarly, it is worth letting them know the date of your exam in January as early as possible – they might let you revise for it when the time comes. This is why keeping on top of the lectures for the distance learning module is so important because your revision time near the exam will be significantly reduced in comparison to a normal university year. Depending on your preference, you could watch your lectures as soon as they come out on the podcast site or setting out a day every week or two to catch up.
I am now looking forward to Christmas and a short break before the New Year which exams and, as ever, more trials and more testing!
Seasons greetings,
Ben
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